Employee experience is the ‘new’ value zone. It is the strongest measure of enterprise success today. However, creating a seamless digital employee experience will not be easy.
Confronting the #top10 #DigitalWorkplace challenges of 2022.
“The path to enabling an effective, efficient and a truly digital workplace is beset on all sides by the unprecedented pace of technology change, and the heightened expectations of the workforce“.
Add this to the new workplace realities brought on by pandemic-driven remote working. A recent Gartner survey discovered that at least 75% of hybrid or remote working employees say their expectations to work flexibly have increased. Returning to traditional work design, would mean enterprises losing up to 39% of their workers.
The last two years have been tumultuous for businesses and the workforce alike, but progressive enterprises have been able to solidify their digital workplace strategy. So, as we enter into 2022, what are the greatest workplace challenges facing businesses?
Dispersed workforce: The global workforce is becoming more dispersed across geographies, time zones, cultures, and languages, and all are seeking a seamless and unified experience. Organizations cannot afford to operate in a slow and clunky workplace environment. Tech-forward companies need to adopt digital tools and a digital workplace platform that will provide a frictionless experience.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion: This has already been a part of boardroom discussions for some time and enterprises have started developing DE&I initiatives at the CXO level. But looking at the current scenario caused by ‘the great resignation’ in the workforce, a tech-driven, enhanced focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion must take center stage now.
Skilling the workforce: Among the biggest conversations happening in the post-COVID world, one is how to build a workforce that is agile enough to adapt to the ever-changing world of work. By 2024, 54% of all employees will require significant upskilling due to automation and AI, reports the World Economic Forum. So, businesses around the globe have to wake up to this fact and follow enterprises that are already launching multi-million training programmes – for both upskilling and cross-skilling.
Limitation of complicated digital tools: The plethora of digital tools that are trying to assist users to complete their tasks efficiently can be overwhelming. Numerous software packages, all trying to improve the digital employee experience, only add to the complexity, inefficiency, and end-user confusion. To increase productivity and efficiency, complexity must go down. And that’s where enterprises must cut through the noise and adopt experience-oriented holistic solutions.
Knowledge gaps: With every passing day, it’s getting more critical for the workforce to understand how to use the new digital workplace tools and technologies for enhanced productivity and experience. As mentioned before, the biggest conversations happening in the world today are around building a workforce that is agile enough to adapt to the ever-changing world of work.
Data security: For employees to work efficiently, they must be able to access data and applications when and where they want that too, across all device types (BYOD). This brings in the problem of ‘shadow IT’ and that’s where data and application security becomes a big challenge. The way to deal with it is by encouraging, educating, and training employees to follow best practices, and adopting digital workplace tools and platforms that are business-compliant.
Disconnected remote workers: Many reports are already out on how remote workers are feeling disengaged and disconnected from the workplace. While constant communication seems like an obvious way to solve the problem, a better approach might be needed. Augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality can go a long way in championing inclusiveness towards hybrid workforce to ensure employees don’t feel lost or isolated during remote working.
Resistance to change: Push back from the workforce could be among the major challenges to navigating legacy IT to a modern digital workplace. The success of your digital workplace transformation depends upon the willingness of the users and, hence, the role of C-Suite becomes critical. They must become the driving force in implementing these changes enterprise-wide from the top down. Without the support and involvement of the entire C-suite, such programs can’t thrive.
Organizational silos: Silos make an organization resistant to change; they reduce efficiency and increase operational risks. Due to their siloed activity, business units are impeded or unable to collaborate because their processes, systems, documentation, and communications apply to only a part of the organization. This is specifically relevant for today’s distributed hybrid workforce and fragmented teams.
Limited budgets: IT teams have constantly been tasked with ‘doing more with less’, making workplace IT management more difficult. Even with the pandemic having a grave impact on our work, IT spending was down 5.4% in 2020, according to Gartner. Technology leaders must make the smart decisions of prioritizing the right digital workplace technology that enables employee experience, productivity, and security while being compliant.
At HCLTech, our digital workplace solutions and tools enable enterprises to build a ‘Fluid Workplace’ that is hyper-personalized, agile, adaptive, empathetic, human-centric, inclusive, and resilient, delivering a seamless experience to your workforce anywhere, anytime, and on any device. Our digital workplace services, driven by our workplace consulting-led approach, bring together technology, people, and culture to create positive experiences that make your workforce meaningfully productive and purposefully engaged.
